Must Reads: Dope doctor arrested, changes to Milan-San Remo finale

By VeloNews.com

Published Mar. 19, 2012

Gerrans will look again for this feeling at the Tour de France. Photo: Mark Johnson

The fall of Dr. Beltran — El País

Sports doctor Alberto Beltran was arrested in Spain’s Barajas Airport on March 7th and charged with distributing doping products, including the new-generation products AICAR and TB-500, according to Spanish newspaper El País. He remains in custody.

Beltran was on his way to Colombia when authorities, who had been on the case for over a year, caught up to him.

This incident is not Beltran’s first run-in with doping authorities. He was arrested with a car full of doping products in April 2001 while he was the team doctor for Selle Italia-Colombia. Accoring to police sources, he has been living in Bahrain since 2009, working as a veterinarian with no direct contact with athletes. Instead, he used others as intermediaries for his transactions.

Beltran has been connected with doping controversies in professional running and rowing as well.

A tougher Milan-San Remo finale in 2013 — L’Equipe

Despite Saturday’s exciting finale, race organizers of “La Primavera” want to change the route to make it more selective.

“It’s true that we have experienced an attractive finale, but once again the Poggio has not allowed Vincenzo Nibali to make the selection,” organiser Mauro Vegni told L’Equipe. “But a race that doesn’t give an attacker the chance to finish it off alone is not a race anymore. We’ll have to modify it, to make it a bit harder.”

Organizers are considering two options, and may implement one or both. First, they may add more climbing late in the race, departing from the Cipressa midway up the penultimate climb and sending riders further up on steep roads. Second, the finish may be moved closer to the bottom of the Poggio, favoring attackers.